The coalition, CWAC, is committed to saving California’s water and is currently supporting four projects that will contribute to water security.

Partnerships & collaborations

Collaborative investments to Protect California’s water future

As the deepening drought requires tougher choices around water use, a coalition of major companies and NGOs today announces investment in four critical water security projects in California. The group, called California Water Action Collaborative (CWAC), includes Ag Capital Management, Ag Innovations, Anheuser-Busch, Alliance for Water Stewardship, Campbell Soup Company, the CEO Water Mandate, The Coca-Cola Company, Driscoll’s, Ecolab, Future 500, General Mills, MillerCoors, The National Forest Foundation, Nestlé, OLAM, Pacific Institute, Sustainable Conservation, Sustainable Food Lab, The Nature Conservancy, and World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Image courtesy of CWAC

CWAC is committed to saving California’s water and is currently supporting four projects that will contribute to water security:

The San Joaquin Valley Farmland Groundwater Recharge project applies excess floodwater to active and fallowed farmland and allows water to percolate down to refill aquifers

In the Sierra Nevada, the American River Headwaters project will conduct research to determine whether ecological thinning can reduce the risk of wildfires and measurably increase downstream water supply by allowing snowfall and rain to accumulate and replenish creeks and rivers

The San Gabriel Watershed is focused on removing 50 acres of a water intensive invasive species called Arundo donax, or giant cane, the project is returning significant amounts of water to area streams

CWAC members and others are supporting the California Water Action Plan by identifying opportunities where the private sector can accelerate progress in water stewardship

Partnership to provide baseline water quality study in area with sensitive ecology

Chemists from The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) have partnered with Apache Corporation to conduct a baseline water quality study of groundwater and surface water in the newly discovered Alpine High resource play in West Texas.

In September of 2016, Apache announced that it has discovered approximately 15 billion barrels of oil equivalent in southern Reeves County, Texas. The Alpine High resource play lies in the southern corner of the Delaware Basin within the prolific Permian Basin. The partnership will allow UTA chemists to conduct a baseline analysis of both surface and groundwater quality in the area to provide important data for future monitoring efforts in this area with an extremely sensitive ecology.

Mergers & acquisitions

Rockwell Automation acquires MAVERICK Technologies

Rockwell Automation Inc. has acquired leading systems integrator MAVERICK Technologies to expand domain knowledge and help deliver innovative control and information solutions to customers in industries, such as chemical, food and beverage, and oil and gas. The acquisition significantly strengthens Rockwell Automation’s expertise in key process and batch applications to help its customers realize greater productivity and improved global competitiveness through process control and information management solutions.

The acquisition supports the Rockwell Automation growth strategy to help customers increase global competitiveness by adopting The Connected Enterprise – a vision that connects information across the plant floor with the entire enterprise to drive new business value. This is particularly important to process customers whose uptime and continuous performance are critical.

MAVERICK is located in Columbia, Illinois, with 21 locations in the U.S. and more than 300 engineers and technical salespeople. In July 2016, it was recognized by The Silicon Review magazine as one of the “2016 50 Best Companies to Watch.”

Emerson to acquire UK-based Permasense Limited

Emerson announced it has agreed to acquire UK-based Permasense Limited, a leading provider of non-intrusive corrosion monitoring technologies for the offshore and onshore oil production, refining, chemical, power, pipelines, metals and mining and other industries.

Permasense monitoring systems use unique sensor technology, wireless data delivery and advanced analytics to continuously monitor for metal loss from corrosion or erosion in pipes, pipelines or vessels, and reliably deliver high-integrity data from even the harshest environments.

The acquisition represents another step forward in Emerson’s strategy to invest in its core business platforms and expand in markets that hold significant long-term growth opportunity.

The Permasense product line will become part of Emerson’s Rosemount portfolio of measurement and analytical technologies. Permasense technologies complement Emerson’s Roxar intrusive corrosion monitoring and non-intrusive sand management systems and strengthen the company’s Pervasive Sensing applications that provide customers a more complete view of their operations and facilities. With Permasense and Roxar technologies in its portfolio, Emerson will be the largest provider of integrity and corrosion management solutions in the marketplace.

Central to Permasense corrosion monitoring systems are sensors that employ proven ultrasonic wall thickness measurement principles. The sensors are battery powered and communicate wirelessly, which minimizes the cost of installation and enables use in remote areas and on a large scale. The sensors are also designed so they can be deployed in hazardous areas.

New contracts

Gradiant, a technology company specializing in industrial water solutions and innovations, is developing 6 brine concentration projects in China, two of which are in final stages of negotiation. The company is working with Shanghai Electric, a Hong Kong and Shanghai listed enterprise and one of China’s largest mechanical and electrical equipment manufacturers, to secure the contracts.

Gradiant is developing projects in China to treat power plant flue gas desulfurization (FGD) wastewaters and oilfield produced water with distillate capacities ranging from 500 to 36,000 m3/d (0.13 to 9.5 MGD). Gradiant has deployed similar projects in the U.S., up to 2,000 m3/d.

H2O Innovation awarded new contracts

H2O Innovation Inc. was awarded new contracts including three wastewater treatment contracts in Canada – two in Alberta and one in Quebec that also incorporates a five-year operation and maintenance contract. These new contracts, using the flexMBRTM technology, bring the corporation’s projects sales backlog to $48.9 M, included in the $105.1 M consolidated backlog (combining projects and operation and maintenance contracts).

The first award consist of a wastewater treatment system using a customized containerized membrane bioreactor, designed on the flexMBRTM platform, and sludge dewatering solutions for a waste management company located in Fort McMurray, Alberta. The two other projects are membrane bioreactors (MBR) servicing private developers. The second project in Alberta will also incorporate the flexMBRTM design and will include ceramic flat sheet membranes. For the project in Quebec, the corporation has been awarded the design and construction of the system in addition to a five-year operation and maintenance contract.

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